Light In The Dark
by whitedwarf
Summary: (FemHP/Klaus) Everything was going according to plan. New Orleans believed his daughter dead. Not knowing the harm it would cause, Ester reveals a catastrophic secret: Hayley was not your daughter's mother, Niklaus. Rei Potter is the leader of the war. One she is winning. But how can the saviour fight if she is preoccupied & protecting a child? A child, a daughter...that's hers.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the Originals or Harry Potter

...

"Duck!"

Throwing herself to the side Rei winced harshly as the wall beside her exploded, the red sparks of her opponent's spell obliterating the stone in a shower of violence.

Glaring through the haze of dust, ears ringing with the screams of enemies and allies alike, she swept holly wood in a sharp circle, channelling her rage in the only way she knew how at this point: destruction.

Pure destruction.

And desperation.

They had to get out.

Magic flew from her wand, colliding with the masked Death Eater charging towards her currently vulnerable figure, sweeping him off his feet with a visible concussion of air.

They'd walked straight into the Yaxley twins' trap.

The crunch of bone was lost in the screams surrounding her but that didn't stop Rei from seeing the evidence of her spell as purple light tore through the unknown wizard's torso, spraying red blood all over the cobblestones.

Staggering to her feet, Rei grasped her short reprieve with both hands and silently cast the sonorous charm.

"Get out!" She screamed, her voice booming through the spell saturated air of the London park. "Portkey out! Now!" The order was severe as it was desperate, because every second they lingered here, trapped, was another life lost to this blood bath they'd inadvertently walked straight into.

Blasting two incoming wizards off their feet, Rei spun quickly to block a blood boiling curse from her left, snarling furiously at the all too familiar cackle that somehow managed to echo even in her deafening surrounds.

Bellatrix.

"You can't get out, little Potter," The taunt came from everywhere and yet nowhere, cleverly disguised amongst the chaos. "There's a ward erected to stop just such a retreat as you just ordered."

Worry pounded in her veins as Rei indeed saw the evidence of that threat. Wizards and witches all around were grasping frantically at random objects on their person that she knew in her heart were the escape portkeys every individual on this mission was required to have on them before apparating out of the safe houses.

Shit!

"To me!" Rei screamed, flicking her wrist just as a freaking _fireball_ came barrelling towards her.

Heat sizzled the skin on her wrist as she forcibly 'caught' the fiery inferno with her magic, hauling her arm back she flung the offending curse right back at the line of Death Eaters advancing on the dozen figures full-out sprinting in her direction.

All orders must be followed.

It saved lives.

Merlin, what was this war doing to them all?

Tortured screams from those few too late, weak or inexperienced to raise a shield pierced the dusty air, stilling the back-and-forth skirmish for the first time since they'd landed face-first into this hell.

…

"A thousand years ago in a fit of rage, you wrapped your bare hands around my neck and squeezed until I died," Ester said solemnly, gazing pensively at the swaying trees surrounding the plantation's ashy ruins. "Do you even remember why?"

"Let's see," Klaus smirked hollowly, fury running like electricity under his skin. "You cursed me. Denied me of my hybrid nature. You lied about my father-"

"It's that one, above all," Raising her arm to halt his barely begun list of grievances, Klaus grit his teeth against the feeling of rebellion, silently reminding himself that he was here to help Elijah. To get back the brother she had stolen from him. "You killed me because I kept you from ever knowing your true father."

"My hatred for you runs so deep it's difficult to pinpoint its origin," The ringing truth in those words seemed to give even his monstrous mother pause.

But he wasn't done.

Moving towards the New Orleans witch Ester was currently inhabiting Klaus swept around in a circle – stalking - allowing his thoughts voice, "Maybe I hate that I am the product of a whore's lechery."

The echo of the slap was more severe than the pain such human abuse could ever render on his immortal body.

"Watch your mouth! You would do well to remember that you are still my son."

Klaus felt the sharp prick of fangs as his hybrid teeth descended from gums, the familiar taste of iron filling his mouth as furious frustration threatened, once again, to overwhelm him in the face of his hateful mother.

"You judge me evil, yet it was your lust that made me what I am," He smiled cruelly, enjoying the flash of grief he saw dart across Ester's eyes.

Eyes that hardened with determination barely a second later.

"Not once have I ever regretted the love I had for your father. And you have never known the truth of how that love came to be. In what happened," She stressed, leaning forward as if to physically force him to recognise the truth of her words "…in the months after Mikeal and I lost your sister, Freya, to the plague."

His chin lifted.

"There are no words for the loss of a child," Ester spoke with a sorrowful lilt to her voice that Klaus guessed was supposed to be some sort of… shared sympathy.

The sentiment was wasted on him.

He hated his mother to the edge of the Earth.

Nothing she said would ever matter.

Not to him.

"As _you_ well know."

The reminder of his missing daughter was like a sledgehammer to the heart. It was all he could do to stop himself from zipping over and ripping her still beating heart straight from her chest.

How dare she mention Hope?

How _dare_ she!

When she was the one who ordered all the witches of the French Quarter not to rest until the innocent newborn's life had been torn from her. Until all he and Hayley could do was send their precious daughter away? Pretend that she was dead? The only protection he was able to offer his only daughter, the light of his life, the horrible lie of her very existence?

He hated her.

"I know that I denied you a life with your real father. That my decision haunted you. Haunts you," She smiled grimly, seemingly lost to her memories. "I knew that if Mikael discovered my infidelity he would destroy us all in his rage. So I kept you secret." Turning on her heel, she stroked the high grass at her side as she whispered, "Perhaps I was wrong to do so."

Klaus clenched his teeth but couldn't stop the comment on the tip of his tongue. "You were wrong."

Dark hair moved with her as Ester turned back to face him, a pensive, strange look on her face.

For the first time she seemed…hesitant.

Unsure.

As if worried as to the wisdom of her next words.

"…You sound so sure in your answer," She trailed off, a questioning light in her eyes.

"Because I am sure," He snarled darkly.

To have been raised by a man such as she described? Powerful yet wise? Beloved by his people? Amongst the wolves that would have understood his temperamental rage and dominance?

It would have changed everything.

Silence hung in the air as his mother studied him, long moments passing as his limited patience quickly waned before Ester finally nodded with a hum.

"Then perhaps I might be able to lessen the grief I know you will always feel for the loss of your child, Niklaus," She smiled a small, sad smile. "Perhaps it will help you to know the truth… To know that your situation, while cruel beyond compare, could easily have been infinitely worse."

Stillness settled in his bones.

"What are you talking about?" The demand wasn't as strong as he'd hoped.

Breathing in deeply Ester nodded once to herself, as if to assure her own inner doubts as to the wisdom of her next words.

"I watched you, my son, from the other side. I watched as you found out the werewolf girl, Hayley, carried your child. I watched as you, Elijah and Rebekah fought witches, werewolves and vampires in order to protect that unborn child… And I watched as you all dismissed the warning of the seer, Celeste, when she prophesised that your child would bring about the death of all witches."

He laughed.

Honestly and truly, Klaus couldn't hold in the bark of laughter.

"Is that all?" Sweeping his arms wide, feeling his own raised worry quickly recede at the topic of his mother's 'reassurance', he could only laugh. "I said it at the time mother: what do I care if my child is prophesised to commit such deeds? It simply endeared her to me."

"You misunderstand me, Niklaus," Ester said sharply. "Even as powerful as you are, as powerful as our witch bloodline is – there should have been no way that your child was capable of such prophesised acts when mixed with a simple werewolf bloodline."

"Enough!" Rolling his eyes, completely done with this topic and honestly increasingly eager to move the conversation away from his still very-alive baby daughter, Klaus chopped his arm through the air, "I'm through talking about this mother. I want Elijah back. Remember?"

"You never questioned it," Ester continued on, ignoring him as she stalked forward. "None of you ever thought to question the discrepancies in what you were being told. If you had…well, as I said, perhaps losing your child when you did was a small blessing."

He had her throat in his hand before she could blink.

"Don't you ever insinuate that there was any sort of blessing in my daughter's death again," He snarled softly, the familiar soft heat behind his gaze telling him that his eyes were now a dangerous amber.

Ester didn't move. Didn't flinch.

Instead, pity flooded her fake brown eyes.

"Hayley was not your daughter's mother, Niklaus," She said quietly.

His brow twitched.

"…What?"

"The werewolf girl was merely a surrogate. She wasn't your child's biological mother."

The air left his lungs in a rush as his hand fell limply from his mother's vulnerable throat.

"No."

"I'm telling the truth, Niklaus."

Staggering back, hands outstretched as if to ward off any further explanation, any further evidence of a truth he didn't want to hear - to know! - Klaus shook his head frantically.

"You're lying," He growled, cadence closer to the wolf's call than a human's shout. "You're lying!"

"I'm not," His mother shook her head slowly, sad. "She was your child, Niklaus. She was and will always be your child, but she was not that girl's. I'm sorry."

"This is a trick," He declared blackly, unable to stop his own body from continuing to back away. "I have no idea why you are saying these things, what it could _possibly_ gain you," Dear God! How could this be?! "but I've had enough mother! Stop!"

"I merely want you to understand some of my own desperate feelings at that moment I realised you weren't Mikael's, my son," His mother said beseechingly. "To try to understand why I kept you from a father you've always resented and hated me for stealing you from. A situation that you yourself are now faced with. Yet, despite your own loss, the death of your child means that you never have to live with the guilt of denying your daughter her real mother. Not as I was forced to."

"Stop!"

"Can't you empathise with my struggle, Niklaus? I knew in my heart that you could be happy with Mikael as your father, with him believing you were his son! To have told you the truth – told him! – it would have ruined everything. Just as telling your own child and Hayley of the truth of her conception would needlessly complicate all of your lives!"

But Klaus wasn't hearing anything.

 _Hayley was not your daughter's mother, Niklaus_

How?

How?!

Because he could read the truth of his mother's words in her eyes. Her selfish, open eyes.

But…

"How?" He breathed.

Impassioned as she was by her own argument, her own self-serving designs to somehow buy his forgiveness for thousand-year-old sins, his mother seemed to wilt slightly at this line of questioning.

"How is Hayley not the mother?" Klaus whispered, heart pounding a mile a minute, mind flicking through facts and answers so fast he could barely keep his legs under him. "How is that possible?"

"Does it really matter?" Ester countered tiredly, beginning to turn away.

"It matters to me!" His roar shook the trees around them, dozens of birds shooting straight into the air as the predator that he was exposed itself to the world.

She stared at him in silence.

"Gods mother," He laughed hollowly, hands fists at his sides, "do you not owe me at least this?"

"…Your daughter would have been powerful. Too powerful," Ester smiled sarcastically, "to be the product of the Original Hybrid and a simple werewolf from New Orleans. No matter how important her bloodline is to the beasts of the Bayou."

Swallowing, Klaus couldn't stop his mind from flashing to Hayley, remembering how tightly she'd held Hope in her arms the night he'd given her to Rebekah to protect.

"Your child was the result of a spell. A soul link spell. Hayley was merely the first woman capable of carrying a child you were intimate with following its casting."

The memory of how hard Hayley fought to get to Hope, to save her from Genevieve and the witches godforsaken sacrifice ritual now twisted harshly in his gut. Rage, anger and everything in between storming through him as Klaus comprehended just how much this information was going to hurt the little wolf.

And he knew exactly how much it would hurt…because all _he_ could feel was bone-deep relief.

Relief that Hope was still his.

Even if she wasn't Hayley's.

Ester was watching him closely, searching for weaknesses in this horrible moment, the chink in his armour she needed in order to press her advantage. He knew that was what she was doing. He could read it in her eyes. But he also knew that she was telling the truth.

The truth was always more damaging than lies.

"Who's the mother?" He snarled. Demanded.

This time, she really did smile.

"If you really wish to know that, my son…you will have to be willing to find and talk to me once again."

He barely registered the pain before darkness took him.

…

So, did you like?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Originals

…

 _Thank-you to everyone who reviewed! I love talking to you and getting your feedback so watch out for my review replies ;D_

…

Laying his hand on Elijah's forehead, Klaus forced his mind deeper, plunging past his brother's mental barriers in an attempt to breach his subconscious.

To bring him home.

"Let me in, Elijah," He panted, feeling the first tingles of pain begin to form behind his eyes. "Let me help end whatever torment mother has forced upon you."

Gasping, he mentally shoved past the increasing pain beginning to tear at his head, determined to save his brother.

He would not leave him alone to suffer!

Just as the taste of blood touched his lips a cold hand broke his concentration, violently jarring him out of his task.

Spinning, defences already raised, Klaus barely managed to control his animal instinct to attack when he caught sight of Hayley's shocked features, shuddering to a stop.

"What are you doing?" She breathed, staring at the blood dripping from his nose with ill-disguised alarm and not a small amount of suspicion as her eyes quickly shot to Elijah's defenceless body laid out on the bed behind him.

Klaus hastily wiped the blood from his face, trying to catch his breath, even as familiar irritation at her obvious, ongoing distrust towards him – even concerning his own brother – quickly reared its head.

An irritation that died a quick, painful death as soon as his gaze caught hers.

She wasn't Hope's mother.

Clearing his throat, he nodded towards Elijah's prone form, "I'm trying to enter Elijah's thoughts to wake him…Ester has locked me out."

He couldn't help watching Hayley, like a specimen under a microscope, as she approached his brother. Watching as she gently lowered the collar of his white shirt to peer at something he couldn't see.

And he realised…he believed his mother.

He'd believed her claim about Hayley merely being a surrogate from the moment he'd heard the words. Because he'd seen the look in Ester's eyes.

To his mother's mind there was no reason to lie.

His daughter was dead.

This earth-shattering knowledge concerning the truth of Hope's conception wasn't meant to serve as anything but another bartering piece in finally convincing him to accept what she offered. To only add to the reasons he ought to trust her. Trust in what she was offering him by re-gifting a mortal life to her children. The same mortal life she'd forcibly stolen from them all one thousand years ago.

Ester had no idea what she'd done.

"Is this rash a side effect of the witchy acid trip he's on?"

Hayley's soft question broke him out of his thoughts with an effectiveness that told him just how much his mind wanted to avoid the topic, and Klaus grasped the opportunity with both hands.

Leaning forward, he pushed aside the material at Elijah's neck, closing his eyes against the sight of the familiar burn mark, admitting, "I haven't seen this since I was a child." At least he now knew what had to be done. "Mikael would return home from battle more blindly temperamental than usual and our mother would use the petals of a rare Merlock orchid to put him to sleep." The explanation rolled off his tongue with an ease Klaus relished in, even as he skilfully avoided the concerned stare of the girl to his left. "She would mend his mind with a spell and then wake him with the roots of the same plant."

Breathing out, he steeled himself before turning to face Hayley, stomach swooping as he locked eyes with her familiar hazel for the first time since his mother had told him the truth.

 _Hayley was not your daughter's mother, Niklaus._

"If she has access to the plant now, then maybe it also grows in the bayou." Mind ticking over, already mapping his way to the vast area he knew he'd have to search, Klaus continued. "You stay here with your wolves and mind the fort."

Making his way swiftly towards the exit, hating himself for the relief that surged through him at the knowledge that he wouldn't have to look at Hayley or continue to be beset with the unfathomable question of whether he should tell her the truth or keep this painful reality from her until _he'd_ had the time necessary to truly wrap his mind around what it would mean for him, for his family, for…Hope, her voice stopped him.

"I'd rather rip your mother's head off."

No!

Whirling, Klaus closed the gap between them.

"Stay clear of her," He ordered harshly, eyes flashing.

When Hayley's mouth pursed stubbornly and she refused to meet his gaze Klaus felt his anger spike, fear of what she'd find out should she seek out his monstrous mother pulling the cruel words from his throat without remorse.

"What do you think you could do, Hayley?" He crooned softly, stalking forward. "Honestly? Yes, you're a hybrid, but you've barely managed to control your emotions, let alone your impulses." Spreading his arms wide, Klaus laughed sardonically, "Even as a regular mortal, little wolf, you were far more brawn than brain and I simply do not have the time to save Elijah and save _you_ from whatever kidnapping, hostage situation you wind up in this week." Her eyes were wide with shock at his tone, not to mention the genuine hostility that even Klaus could feel saturating the air around him, but he couldn't help it.

All he wanted was to leave.

Leave her sight, her sound, her presence – to have a small moment to process the fact that Hayley – was – not – Hope's – Mother!

And she was preventing that!

"I mean it, Hayley," The order was low, a growl that Klaus didn't even pretend wasn't his werewolf side coming out to play.

Sometimes, he thought that Hayley conveniently 'forgot' that he was a wolf too.

And an alpha.

Swallowing, avoiding his eyes, the brunette nodded stiffly. "I won't go after her. I promise."

"Good."

Then he was gone.

…

Rei groaned as she heaved herself off the worn chaise, smiling gratefully at the healer that mutely raised a hand to help steady her.

"Easy there," He murmured sympathetically, "that leg's going to be tender for a few hours, alright? It was a pretty deep laceration."

"Yeah," She puffed out a laugh, mind flashing back to the witch who'd managed to catch her with the curse.

"I want you to try walking a lap of this room – _only_ this room," The healer added sternly, making her lips twitch with tired amusement, "while I go get you something to eat, alright?"

"No," She shook her head, gently brushing aside his steadying hand as she took tentative steps towards the broad, dusty windows in front of her, "help the others. I know there's still more hurt." When he looked as if he'd still argue Rei caught his eye, narrowing her gaze just slightly. "I appreciate your concern. And your help. But someone else can get me food, you're needed elsewhere…" she trailed off expectantly.

"Randall," He filled in but when an agonised scream ripped through the decrepit sitting room of one of their smaller and less used safe houses, he left with a quick purposeful nod.

Sighing, finally alone, Rei let her body sag against the wall, peering out the cloudy glass panes at the half dead garden outside.

That had been a close one.

Too close.

…It should never have happened.

Pulling her wand from the back pocket of her jeans, Rei dug deep into her core and spoke the familiar words to a spell she'd mastered at thirteen, smiling at the gentle silver glow that radiated from the giant stag that blazed to life beside her.

"Hermione," She spoke softly, "I'm at Dagforth, Yorkshire, with the others. It was a trap. The Yaxley twins. We lost…" The words stuck in her throat as Rei realised she didn't know how many they'd lost before she'd blasted those wards apart and they'd finally been able to portkey away. To escape. "I don't know," She breathed hollowly. Dragging in a shuddering breath, she rested her forehead against the cool glass, welcoming the bite of cold with a fierceness that surprised her. "The healers stationed here are taking care of everyone, there's no need to send more, we have everything we need for now. As soon as everyone's stable we'll move out." Smiling sadly, she traced a finger along the glass, drawing a star. "…Love you, Mione."

She nodded silently to her patronus and the silvery messenger disappeared without a sound, melting into the walls.

Would this war ever end?

…

Hayley watched Oliver's body burn with conflicted feelings. On the one hand, he'd betrayed them. Betrayed the pack and everything they'd tried to build only a few months ago. He'd had a direct hand in all those machinations falling to pieces. Yet…he'd come back. At the end, when it was asked of him, he'd helped get those young, untriggered werewolves out of New Orleans…and he'd been killed for it.

Surely he'd deserved more than just Jackson and her at his funeral?

"It's not right," Jackson muttered beside her, the bottle of whiskey in his hand swaying with his arms, "Crescent tradition dictates that your body be burned in the morning, in front of the pack, and no-one turned up," He scoffed, drinking deeply from the bottle. "So much for pack loyalty."

Watching him go with thoughtful eyes, Hayley bit her lip, "They're scared, Jack. Finn Mikaelson has them completely controlled with the moonlight rings. Ollie was a traitor to that."

"He wasn't a t-!"

"To them he was," She interrupted him gently, taking the bottle out of his hands. "You might be mad as hell at them, Jack, but they are still our people. And they need you. They need their alpha."

Stepping around him, Hayley made her way back to the car, shielding her eyes against the feel of depression in the air.

They needed to deal with Finn. Now.

Unbidden, her mind flashed back to this morning, to the sight of Elijah laying vulnerable on the bed. Trapped in his mind…And to Klaus.

He'd surprised her.

It had been a long time since she'd had Klaus turn those sorts of emotions on her. Long enough that she'd forgotten how threatening he could be. How genuinely dangerous. In fact, the last time he'd turned to her in such a mood was before she'd started showing while pregnant with their daughter. She hadn't enjoyed the reminder of his power. No matter that that power, that darkness, was now always going to be in her favour…the inequality between them, their capabilities, bit at her pride.

She was a Labonair.

One of the last Crescent alphas.

And that meant something.

Yet, this morning, she'd felt…small.

Growling, Hayley yanked open the car door, throwing herself inside as she started the engine.

No matter. She'd show Klaus, show everyone. She was just as capable as the Originals of taking care of herself. Of getting things done. Hayley refused to become dependent on the impossibly older immortals for all her strength. She'd left home at thirteen for Christ's sakes! Learned to live on the road, with nothing to her name, for years! She'd had no help from anybody.

And she'd be damned if that changed now.

Turning the corner, Hayley reached for her phone and selected Aiden's number on the contact list, listening to the ringing tone with chomping anticipation.

" _Hayls?"_

"Aiden!" She smirked, "I'm glad I caught you. I need your help."

" _With what?"_

"Meet me at Marcel's, I'll tell you everything there."

…

"A thousand years estranged, and you choose to walk in silence," Ansel's voice echoed around them. "Surely you have questions for me."

Closing his eyes, Klaus breathed in deeply, searching for a patience that had never – not even in the best of circumstances – come easily to him.

"Just one," He glared at the trees darkly. "Is there a way to cure Elijah without having to listen to the pointless rambling of an old man?"

His birth father walked quietly past him, eyes twinkling with affectionate, gentle humour at the evidence of one of Klaus' more well-known vices.

"I'm afraid the price of my assistance is conversation," Ansel countered, moving forward to lead the way.

Scoffing, Klaus bent his head to the side, unable to bring himself to follow so easily after the man who was responsible for one half of his very existence. He'd bitten back all his questions, time having numbed him to the importance of the answers more effectively than anything else ever could, yet still…

"You know, I used to tell myself that my real father must've had no idea I existed," He spat. "Otherwise he'd never leave me to suffer under Mikael." Even as he said the words, Klaus surprised himself with how much he truly meant them.

Mikael's abusive tendencies were hardly a secret in their small village. Everyone in their community was afraid of the enduringly angry warrior on some level. But he supposed self-preservation had ensured such wariness in those he'd lived among. A simpleton would have been able to grasp that Mikael's fury was a deep, dark, simmering emotion. One that wasn't going away. How his mother could have loved him was a riddle even he was unable to solve after all these years. And Ester had loved Mikael. Of that he was sure.

But what was Ansel's excuse?

"Ester forbade me from seeing you, so I waited, knowing that one day you would trigger your curse and need your real father," Ansel spoke quietly but with strength. Conviction.

He believed he'd done right.

Klaus watched now as the same blue eyes that had stared back at him from his own reflection all these years squinted at the leaf matter littering the forest floor, watched as Ansel swept his hand across his mouth and betrayed something less than that infuriatingly perfect calm for the first moment since they'd met.

"But when that happened… Mikael found me first." He grimaced lightly before once again meeting Klaus' gaze. "I fought him for you." Ansel spoke those words like it was of the utmost importance that Klaus know that.

That he'd fought for him.

And, in his heart, Klaus supposed he also knew _why_ that fact mattered.

Him.

He'd fought for him.

Not his pack.

Not for pride or out of jealousy.

Not for Ester.

…He'd fought for him.

His son.

"Well," He drawled slowly, stalking forward, "your grand declaration is just a few years too late."

"You joke, but I know you've always felt a void in your life," Ansel spoke quickly, as if somehow sensing he was getting somewhere and desperate to continue his assault on Klaus' notoriously high emotional walls. "I've watched you from beyond for centuries. You've travelled the world, seen monuments erected, feasted on the blood of history's most extraordinary men, but you've never found true peace."

Words escaped him.

"The only moments of joy in your life, however fleeting, have been simple pleasures." Klaus watched with honest shock as a gentle, wrinkled smile took over Ansel's face, affection blazing from those eerily familiar eyes. Eyes staring at him. "As you climbed the Himalayas. As you tended to your horses. Quiet days, teaching that boy Shakespeare."

"Stop," He denied.

"I watched you paint. I watched you feel your unborn daughter's kick."

Impossibly fast, Klaus shoved Ansel back, snarling.

"I said, stop," He spat through gritted teeth, unimaginable pain gripping his heart as he placed a threatening hand on his father's shoulder, dangerously close to the alpha's neck. "You say Ester forbade you from coming near me, from telling me the truth. What I want to know is…how could you have let her?"

"She was your mother," Ansel breathed, but there was an apologetic look in his eyes. "I thought she knew best."

His hand fisted in the shirt at his father's throat. "Just like that? You never fought her on that decision? Never pressed?"

"She was married, Niklaus. To have given you up…she wasn't willing to do that. And even if she were, Ester would have been risking Mikael taking your siblings from her."

Mouth twisting with disdain, hating the weakness of that answer, Klaus shook his head, letting Ansel go with a shove.

Staring up at the blue sky, he couldn't help the question that left him next.

One that had been stalking his thoughts since he'd spoken to his mother.

"When did you realise that I wasn't Mikael's child?"

Ansel didn't question the inquiry and for that, if nothing else, Klaus was grateful.

"When Ester told me."

His gaze snapped down. "She told you?"

"Yes," Ansel nodded solemnly.

"Why?"

Why would his mother dare to chance that his real father might claim him? Might destroy her marriage? Her life? Why tell him the truth?

"I imagine…because only the true parents of a child can grasp the joy of their existence. And she wanted to share that with the one person who'd feel her joy as strongly as she did."

The idea of his mother being overtaken by joy to the point that it influenced her unending pragmatism seemed ridiculous, but he nodded silently, accepting the theory for what it was: a lover's wishful thought.

"Do you ever…" Breaking off, Klaus rubbed his eyes, angry that he – someone that was _so_ good with words - couldn't seem to find them in this moment."I don't know how you felt watching Mikael raise me in your place. Honestly, I don't even care. But-"

 _I merely want you to understand some of my own desperate feelings at that moment I realised you weren't Mikael's, my son...despite your own loss, the death of your child means that you never have to live with the guilt of denying your daughter her real mother. Not as I was forced to._

Resolute, Klaus turned to face Ansel, gripping him with his gaze. "Do you think it would have been easier if we'd never known the truth?"

The alpha's brow twitched, confused by his question.

"Imagine, for a moment, that vampirism had somehow cancelled out my wolf side a thousand years ago." He wanted to laugh at his own absurdity, his own desperation. But he needed this answer! "That Ester had never told you that I was yours... Do you think it would have been better if you'd never known I was your son? To have lived your life, probably a very happy life, without ever having to live with me as a complication?"

Because he was now faced with exactly what his mother had been all those years ago.

An inconvenient truth.

And Gods, but he wanted to rip his own heart out for even _thinking_ those words.

"No."

He hadn't really thought Ansel would say anything else. Not with so far-fetched a query. He didn't live in 'what ifs' either.

What he didn't expect was the anger.

"No, Niklaus. There was never I time I wished I didn't know the truth. No matter how _inconvenient_ ," Ansel spat with disgust, "you say the truth of your birth was, I never saw it that way. I loved you. I still love you. You're _my_ son. And I would never suffer anyone taking that away from me."

The fierceness, the possessiveness…it was all too familiar.

Klaus' spine straightened with unease, his stomach curling with coldness.

He was sick of this conversation.

Running his tongue along his teeth, Klaus suddenly scoffed. "A millennium of observing me…were your eyes closed as I slaughtered whole villages? Fed my way through thousands of innocents?" Taking perverse pleasure in describing his sins, in testing the strength of Ansel's seemingly loving regard, Klaus continued with a feral grin, "Because, let's face it, I have a tendency to play with my food."

He moved closer with unbearable slowness, ears ringing with the sounds of bayou around them, refusing to relinquish control of Ansel's gaze.

"Have I made you proud… _Father_?"


End file.
